There were two recent incidents, one in India in Panchkula, where the supporters of Ram Rahim, the self-styled Godman had entered the city and camped for a couple of days before his sentencing and the other across the border, in Islamabad where protestors seeking reversal of amendments to the election act had been on a sit in since the beginning […]
An interesting question presently doing the rounds is on whether Pak can be isolated globally for its policy of supporting terror groups or its strategic importance would preclude such an action or would only international pressure make it behave, despite Trump’s rhetoric of threatening it and India’s strong diplomatic initiatives. Post the outburst of Trump, pushing Pak into depression, it […]
The recent statement, post the meeting between the Pak foreign minister, Khawaja Asif and the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, included a comment indicating concerns about the future of Pakistan’s government. This announcement was made after inputs began flowing of a growing rift between the polity and the army, which holds sway over the country. The statement aimed to […]
Background The foreign minister of Pak, Khawaja Asif, acknowledged in the US that Hafiz Saeed, Haqqani network and the LeT are liabilities for Pak. He went on to add, ‘Give us time to get rid of them as we don’t have assets to match these liabilities.’ This is not the first time Pak has admitted that it supports terror groups. […]
The increasing trust deficit between Kabul and Islamabad (read Rawalpindi) has been evident in recent times. The address to the UN General Assembly by the Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani, was clearly directed towards Pakistan, compelling Pak to take recourse to the ‘right to respond’. Similar were his comments during his recent visit to India. India and Afghanistan signed, amongst a […]
I had written an article in ‘The Wire’ on 07Jan 17, entitled, “India, Pakistan and a tale of two army chiefs”, (https://thewire.in/97846/bipin-rawat-qamar-javed-bajwa-india-pakistan/) in which I had stated that the Indian army chief controls only the Assam Rifles, while the Pak army chief controls all para military forces within the country. Thus, the Indian army chief controls forces deployed to ensure […]
The recent diplomatic battle at the UN general assembly between India and Pakistan, followed up by their respective ‘right to respond’ and press comments clearly indicate that animosity between the two nations is only increasing. Numerous counter comments by both, display of pictures, including a wrong one by the Pak permanent representative solely to make a point, only moved the […]
Today, India recollects the surgical strikes launched on 29th Sep last year, across the Line of Control (LoC) into Pakistan. The event coincided, this year, with an ambush on the NSCN (K) group which has evaded talks and has been regularly attacking Indian forces and local civilians. The period leading to the anniversary also included comments by Lt General DS […]
This week witnessed a series of addresses at the UN by heads of state or their representatives. The world followed as leaders from US, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Bangladesh shared their concerns. In many cases, the country against whom comments were made, exercised the right to respond and sought to discredit the statement of the previous leader. Trump while openly […]
Pakistan’s ex-President, General Parvez Musharraf recently stated in an interview that in Pakistan, the army has always come to power to pull the nation from the pits into which elected governments left it. He, like most of his army colleagues in Pakistan, are allergic to any democratically elected government, solely because of the power which they hold over the nation. […]